Posted on 09/21/2006 6:49:40 PM PDT by wjersey
The Commerce Department has lost 1,137 laptop computers since 2001, most of them assigned to the Census Bureau, officials said Thursday night. The Census Bureau, the main collector of information about Americans, lost 672 computers. Of those, 246 contained some personal data, the department said in a statement. However, no personal information from any of the missing computers has been known to have been improperly used, the department said.
The number of people affected by the equipment losses could not be determined, the department said.
"All of the equipment that was lost or stolen contained protections to prevent a breach of personal information," said Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez. "The amount of missing computers is high, but fortunately, the vulnerability for data misuse is low."
More than 30,000 laptops were used within the department's 15 operating unit since 2001, the department said, and a total of 1,137 were stolen or missing.
Fifteen handheld devices used to record survey data for testing processes in preparation for the 2010 Census also were lost, the department said. The department was in the process of contacting the 558 households with data recorded on the missing devices, although because of encryption technology, the risk of data misuse was considered low, it said.
A half-dozen other federal agencies or departments have reported data thefts and security breaches involving personal information in the last six months.
The Veterans Affairs Department suffered the biggest loss with the theft in May of a laptop and external drive containing information for 26.5 million veterans and active-duty troops. Burglars stole the equipment from the home of a Veterans Affairs employee, but the computer was later recovered and showed no signs of having been accessed for the personal data.
Other government departments reporting the loss of computers with personal information include the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services and Transportation. The Federal Trade Commission also has lost laptops with sensitive data.
No way!
They come back to the office without their computer and guess how many illegals were crammed into one innercity apartment?
Sounds blatant. Should be easy to track.
Guessing that the PCs can be found in employee's homes.
Geeze, who they got running the place, the IRS?
bump for publicity
Do I hear the word "gerrymandering interests" floating through this news about stolen laptops from the Census Department? My, my.. I do believe a Democrat or two is interested in redrawing some, uh, voting lines.
I think Census takers are hired on a part time basis from job pools or the like.
Semper Fi
half hearted ping
"OPM" = "other people's money"
Sign me up ... I'll be a census worker.
"Lost" is the Department of Commerce euphemism for "stolen".
As I said on the other thread above.. wouldn't it be interesting to know the political affiliation of the owners of the "lost Laptops"?
"Lost" means that the Department of Commerce officials who let it happen don't lose their jobs.
Let's hope they all had those nifty exploding batteries...
People need to start encrypting their file systems (with strong encryption). Anything else is BS lightweight data security.
I think there might be some cause there for at least a little anxiety .. eh?
The vast majority of these laptops were not lost in an actual office - as noted most census workers are part-time field reps that don't work out of an office, they work at home, and their laptop is mailed to them - they're supposed to mail the laptop back if they no longer work for the Census.
If you want a laptop that was current technology 5 years ago...and you can't use it for anything but census work.
Also no health insurance, benefits of any kind. You do get .44 cents a mile driving, though.
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